


Barbed Wire Cotton Candy

by a_static_world



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Compilation, Multi, Some Fluff, i think the name is fitting, im sorry that’s all i write, most of the others are background characters, mostly angst, stucky because i love my sons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-13 12:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15364338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_static_world/pseuds/a_static_world
Summary: This is a compilation of stucky/the avengers fluff and angst that i’ve been slowly compiling on my phone for two years. Enjoy!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much all angst i’m so sorry but that’s it

1: Peter  
when peter joins the avengers, officially, none of them know what to do. here they are, scarred and battle-weary and traumatized beyond anyone’s imagination. and in comes this kid, this child, so whole and clean and untouched by the exhaustion that weighs all of them down. 

and they’re fucking terrified.  
for the first month or two, they practically tiptoe around, unsure of what to say, what to do. hell, even stark is at a loss, too scared of himself to interact with peter. 

natasha’s the first one to break the seal of unsureness, commenting on how they have similar monikers and offering to teach him gymnastics. somewhere during this conversation, everyone comes to the silent conclusion that nat’s new code name is “mama spider”. 

bruce follows in nat’s wake, taking peter up to his lab and nervously watching him gape at all the equipment, still unsure of how to act around such an innocent fighter, but recommending some new web fluid ideas anyway. 

thor is next, teaching peter about asgardian customs over breakfast and training him in swordsmanship after lunch, and commenting loudly on how worthy mjolnir would have found him when peter feels down. 

steve and bucky, ever the inseparable duo, teach him battlefield strategies.  
how to cope with trauma, how to bind wounds on the quick, how to case your surroundings quickly and accurately, which plants are edible and which will kill you slowly, how to fire a range of stark’s higher tech weapons and some basic ones too.

sam teaches him how to cook.  
how to cook slow-energy-release meals for before battles, how to make dinners and breakfasts and brunches, how to prepare lunches for muscle building or for pigging out, and best of all, basic meals to impress the ladies. 

clint wakes him up in the middle of the night to teach him stealth.  
the art of being everywhere and nowhere, how to see even in pitch black, how to hear even the quietest footstep, the method for best fading in to the background, the way to kill three people and be gone before they find one.  
(this works best for night missions or for scaring the shit out of tony). 

tony teaches him how to be zen. how to move past the terrible and accept what happened, how to stop or slow the nightmares, how to feel a panic attack before it happens, how to know and recognize your triggers and which stimuli affect you worst. 

they may be the teachers, but peter gives something back: laughter. how to feel light again, how to look past the haze and smile at someone.

2: Tattoos  
bucky doesn’t come back from winter mode, doesn’t recognize steve, and natasha shoots him because she can’t stand by and watch steve die. 

but some part of him does die that day.  
he’s never been right since, throwing himself into his training, killing more brutally and cruelly than is necessary. 

the star-spangled man with a plan, the symbol of hope and patriotism and life, is gone, replaced by a hollow shell of brutality and anger and nightmares that don’t go away because how can they when you’re living one?

he lets his hair grow, doesn’t bother with anything besides basic hygiene.  
he becomes addicted to tattoos, teaches himself how to do them. 

he has tattoos in Gaelic.  
lamenting, mourning words, spinning a song from bicep to bicep across his back.  
bucky’s name, written in gaelic with stark, black ink on his left wrist. 

tattoos in pictures.  
bucky’s star adorns his chest, right over his heart. a trail of teeny-tiny bullet casings trickles down his left middle finger, and black, thorny vines wind their way around the rest of them. 

tattoos in random patterns.  
spindly whorls of black wind around his ears. a red line spiraling outward from his navel. nonsense splashes of blue and grey and purple make their way up his forearms. 

but his most prized, and first, tattoo is on his right wrist.  
bucky’s eyes, lovingly rendered in misty blues and greens, painted from memory and inked so they stay there.  
a reminder of what steve lost. 

3: He’s a Ghost  
every time steve loses bucky he gets the same expression: a shell-shocked hundred yard stare, eyes going wide and glassy and vacant. 

and it’s terrifying. 

it’s like steve has clocked out, waves of old memories dragging him under.  
everyone, stark, natasha, sam, hell, even thor knows that when steve clocks out, he’s gone for days. stumbling around like a man possessed, tears streaming down his face, silent and heavy and angry. 

they have enough sense to leave him alone until he snaps out of it, and not to mention it when it happens. they expect everything to go back to normal, and it usually does.

when he loses bucky after the helicarrier fight, it takes him three weeks to come back.

three weeks of eating just enough to keep his enhanced body going, of sealing himself in his room and screaming, of broken sandbags and bloody boxing wraps. no one sees him at all, just sees the markers that mean he’s alive.

he comes out three weeks later for breakfast, shocking the avengers with his calm, his lucidity.  
but something is still off. 

steve is still broken, still missing a piece of his puzzle, as stark puts it quietly.  
he throws himself in to research, compiling boxes and boxes of decrypted, deep-sixed data on the winter soldier.

he avenges when he needs to, and sam offers to help when steve can’t find the time to keep looking. 

at first he finds only sketchy reports and highly redacted memos; the only thing truly clear is how muddled every piece of data is. 

he starts pulling more strings, using his captain america pass more often, and the puzzle slowly comes together.  
pictures of kilroy-covered cell walls, scraped in to the cement with metal fingers.  
old tapes of how cryofreeze worked, how the eraser worked.  
official S.H.I.E.L.D. documents, carefully disguised as expense reports, dating back in to the ‘50s telling of the first successful “trial runs” of the asset. 

and at the center of it all?  
bucky

the avengers watch silently as steve buries himself in piles of dusty paper, not knowing how-or if-they should interfere.

steve becomes angrier and angrier, never directing his fury at the team but at hydra, using long-hidden addresses to wipe them slowly off the map.  
sam takes the calmer side, trying to track bucky’s movements as steve traces a bloody path across the globe

eventually, he runs down the list and every address is crossed off.  
and bucky is still missing. 

steve won’t let himself break, not this time.  
so he returns, resurfaces in the real world  
helps fight off ultron  
helps save the world  
and quietly wishes he and bucky had just died instead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some fluff to ease the sting of the last chapter :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m super terrible at writing fluff and also endings but enjoy! also please check out anoddconstellationofthoughts because they’re amazing and where i get about 90% of my ideas

4: Stucky and Suspenders  
steve and bucky can perfectly pull off suspenders, and the rest of the avengers are pissed  
“no, rogers. it’s enough that you’ve started TALKING like some ‘20s brooklyn mick, now you’ve gotta add to the look too?? unbelievable. where’s pepper?? FRIDAY, message pepper: pepper, come here and fix this!”  
steve doubles over with laughter, suspenders groaning with the movement. bucky slides in to the room, also wearing suspenders, sam and natasha in tow. “stark, what the fuck?”   
tony wheels around and immediately starts screaming.   
“NO. I REFUSE TO HAVE THIS IN MY PENTHOUSE. PEPPER”   
bucky slides a hand around steve’s waist. “what?? i think we look fine..?” steve, tears now streaming out of his eyes, can barely answer. pepper glides in to the room, heels clicking, sparing tony only a cursory glance.   
“natasha, boys. steve, bucky, you guys look nice. tony, why was i dragged from my meeting?”   
“well someone didn’t tell THESE TWO”-he gestures wildly at steve and bucky, now cuddling as close as their suits allow on the couch-“that it’s no longer 1922, they’re not on the titanic, and suspenders are not in.”   
pepper sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose.   
“really, tony? they look fine. enjoy your date night, boys.”   
“PEPPER! NO! STOP THEM!! THEY CAN’T WEAR SUSPENDERS AND STILL LOOK GOOD! ITS AGAINST THE R U L E S”   
tony screeches, as steve and bucky get off the couch and start to leave. 

they barely make it two steps out of the living room before natasha and sam start on them.   
“really, rogers, white suspenders-“  
“-can’t believe this shit, man-“  
“-let me help you find something better-“  
bucky crosses his arms. “nope, i refuse. you’re all just jealous because Captain Fantasstic and i look incredible in suspenders.”  
sam scoffs, “ok, man, whatever you say.” he treks off, muttering what oddly sounds like “fuck them both for being able to make that shit work.”  
natasha leaves too, tossing her hair with a final “humph” and a wink. 

they get three floors down before running in to thor and bruce, who both gawk like they’ve never seen suspenders before.   
“what.” steve says, maybe a tad vicious, but they were late for date night, dammit.   
“steven- what is the, uh, occasion?” thor smiles brightly and elbows a distracted bruce, who nearly goes flying through the windows of the lab.   
“date night,” bucky sighs, not even caring that they’re late for their reservation anymore.   
“oh, well, uh, you guys look-great. wonderful.” bruce stammers. they stand awkwardly for a few seconds before steve clears his throat. “we, uh, better be headed out.” thor brightens immediately. “do not let us stop you, captain. enjoy your night out.”  
they catch scraps of bruce and thor’s conversation as they leave:  
“banner, what were they wearing?”  
“suspenders, thor. suspenders. and god damn them for actually pulling it off.”  
“why wear such an ugly harness when your midgardian belts seem to serve the same purpose?”   
they didn’t catch banner’s reply, but they were sure it would be a stammering explanation of the ergonomic benefits of suspenders, whatever those may be. 

Steve and Bucky actually were out the door before the spider-kid caught up with them.   
“hey, mr. rogers! hey mr. barnes! you guys look really nice-where are you goi-whOA”  
steve sighed through his nose as peter missed the lamppost he was aiming for and landed flat on his back.   
“date night, peter. hey, aren’t you supposed to be training with stark tonight?”  
“yeah, but he told me you guys were doing something ‘awful’ and i should stop you.”  
bucky snorted derisively as steve put one hand on his back and the other on peter’s shoulder.   
“peter, we’re wearing suspenders. stark seems to think it’s the end of the world, but will you please tell him we aren’t going to embarrass him?”   
“sure thing mr. rogers, but why would he be embarrassed?”  
bucky smirked, “‘cause we look better than him. Catch ya later, kid.”  
they strolled off, arm in arm, as peter shot up towards the top of the avengers complex.   
“steve, do you ever think we’ll be on time to date night?”  
“in your dreams, punk.”  
“jerk.”  
the pair grinned happily before heading to the restaurant, suspenders be damned.

5: Girl Scout Cookies  
food is a constant competition in the avengers compound, but treats are rare  
every avenger is allowed two boxes of girl scout cookies per three months, and when those boxes run out, all hell breaks loose  
bucky is the first to break, snatching steve’s perfectly rationed Samoas and running down the halls screaming “FIGHT ME ROGERS”  
steve retaliates, chasing him with the customary “WHAT THE SHIT BARNES”  
alliances are formed and broken; the longest lasting alliance was between peter parker and bruce banner, lasting seven and one half weeks without a fight   
clint hides his thin mints in the air vents, thinking they’ll be safe  
eventually, tony and shuri invent a glucose scanner, and the biggest hotspot is clint’s air duct nest, with a total of forty stolen boxes and sixteen single cookies   
natasha pretends not to care, but is seemingly always eating a cookie long after the others run out  
no one except peter dares steal from tony after the infamous rhodey attempt  
no one at all steals from sam, because sam gives out everything except those little lemon cookies freely 

6: Thousand Island  
“What the fuck, Tony!!”  
Bucky’s voice rang out loud and clear across the compound.   
“Salad dressing my ass, you mixed three perfectly good condiments together and created Trump. Look at this, it’s literally the color of shit!”  
Steve entered the kitchen apprehensively, opening the hydraulic doors to find his angry, muscle-tee-and-manbun clad boyfriend staring down Tony Stark. A bottle of innocuous-looking orange something sat next to a pile of lettuce, a meal clearly having been abandoned.   
“Barnes, listen-Cap, tell him Thousand Island is fine. It’s fucking salad dressing, everyone eats it. FRIDAY? When was Thousand Island invented?”   
Bucky narrowed his eyes, turning his full attention to Steve as FRIDAY’s “Well, sir, reports vary-“ goes unnoticed in the background.   
“Uh, yeah, I mean, I’ve only had it a few times but it seems okay-“  
Steve gets cut off by Bucky’s indignant groaning and Tony’s smug “see, Barnes, even the most American thing in America loves it!”   
“Goddamnit, Rogers. How does nobody see??? You eat the things-the ketchup, the mayonnaise, the whatever- on their own, they’re fine. Tasty, even. But you mix them and bad things happen, like when they injected a tomato with ranch dressing on that one movie and it turned blue and sentient. Bad things, Steve! Monsters!!”   
“Well,” Tony began dryly, “I can promise you that Donald Trump is not going to spring forth from this bottle, but I can’t promise that it’s not expired.”   
Steve, by this point, was doubled over with laughter, nonsense like “Trump-shit-oh my god-holy-“ spilling from his mouth as he desperately tried to haul himself upright using Bucky’s left pec.   
Natasha sauntered in, grabbed the plate, dumped the dressing on, and left as quickly as she came. Bucky’s eyes grew wide.   
“NATALIA GET YOUR A S S BACK HERE WHERE ARE YOU GOING WITH THAT DEVILS CONDIMENT STEVE STOP HER”  
“Buck, let it go. You like dipping chicken nuggets in ketchup, mustard and honey mixed. I don’t think you get to talk.”  
Bucky spluttered “But! That! Is! Barnes! Special! Sauce! That is a thing, beloved by the Barnes family,” he glared, “and the Rogers family, for many generations! It is sacred, Steve! Devil sauce is the opposite of sacred. Its sacreligious, blasphemous, disgusting-“  
Tony finally cut Bucky off.   
“Well if we’re not eating salad, that means you have to cook.”  
Steve started to laugh once more as Bucky went silent, gaping like a fish.


End file.
